RUSSIAN CASINO BOSS IN COSTA RICA

29 February 2008

Could this land operator branch out online?


Storm International, Russia's largest casino company, will open gambling venues in Costa Rica and Armenia this year and may abandon its home market because of government restrictions on future land gambling venues, Chief Executive Officer Michael Boettcher told Bloombergs business news this week.

"If the law doesn't change, we'll leave Russia,'' said Boettcher, a 60-year-old Briton who claims to have founded Moscow-based Storm 16 years ago with two blackjack tables and a roulette wheel. "Most staff, certainly the management, will come with us,'' he said last week at his Jazz Town casino in Moscow.

Storm is aiming for 12 percent of the US$172 billion world gaming market by 2030, Boettcher said.

The company plans to open a renovated casino in the Armenian capital of Yerevan by May and will invest $300 million developing a hotel, concert and exhibition halls, a shopping center and restaurants. In Costa Rica, the company is refurbishing a hotel and building a casino, both scheduled to open by July.

Given that Costa Rica is a prominent haven for offshore Internet gambling companies, a move into the online milieu could be a possibility.

Emerging markets are more attractive than developed nations because they have fewer rules governing gaming, the Boettcher said.

Storm's revenue has risen by as much as 25 percent annually in the past seven years and climbed 40 percent in 2007, Boettcher revealed, although he declined to furnish financial numbers. The company has five Moscow casinos including Jazz Town, which has its own music club, 30 gaming tables and a leather-furnished VIP room.

Storm will turn its Moscow properties into stores, offices or hotels and is diversifying into business jets and yacht- chartering for millionaires in the Russian capital.

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